I actually had that problem as well, I found the description in the end it just took longer than I expected.
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone. From: Linda Walsh Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 19:53 To: bug-bash Subject: Re: child_pid of background process? (not in manpage?) Chris Down wrote: > On 2013-08-18 17:46, Linda Walsh wrote: >> I don't find the variable for the process ID of the >> last started background process documented in the bash manpage... >> >> Am I just missing it, or did it get left out by accident or >> where did it go? > > First of all, it would help if you gave your version. At least in 4.2.45, it's > under "Special Parameters". > >> Special Parameters >> >> [...] >> >> ! Expands to the process ID of the most recently executed >> background (asynchronous) command. --- That explains it... There's -- in searching the output, I'm pretty sure that seeing a stray '!' in the left hand margin wouldn't have looked like a var. In this case, especially for the 1 char vars, wouldn't it be easier to help people see them and help them search for them if they included the '$' before them so they wouldn't look like stray punctuation? or so I could search on \$[^a-zA-Z0-0] and find it? It would make finding it alot easier for people skimming or searching for it. (Not that, it isn't technically accurate, but searching for a single '!' as the name of a var in text doc, might lead to quite a few false positives? (im in V4.2.x bash, BTW,...sorry)
